FRANCE has elected its first Socialist president since 1988 and then given the Socialist Party and its closest allies a whopping majority in Parliament. But how Socialist is François Hollande? And what does it mean to be a Socialist these days, anyway?

Not very much. Certainly nothing radical. In a sense, socialism was an ideology of the industrialized 19th century, a democratic Marxism, and it succeeded, even in (shh!) the United States. Socialism meant the emancipation of the working class and its transformation into the middle class; it championed social justice and a progressive tax system, and in that sense has largely done its job. As the industrialized working class gets smaller and smaller, socialism seems to have less and less to say.

**SNIP**

Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a leader of the student revolt of May 1968, known then as Dany the Red, is now Dany the Green, co-leader of the ecologist group in the European Parliament. The fight between private property and state property is over, he says, and traditional class distinctions are blurred. There was never a purely socialist working class, he suggested. Socialism and social democracy today are about a society with more solidarity, more protection of people, more egalitarianism. In a way, he said, socialism is defined today mostly by its contrast to neo-liberalism  by more reliance on the state and higher taxes on the wealthy.

Socialism and Liberalism in my opinion is a MENTAL ILLNESS. Fine example with the rational of MR Green. He thinks socialism floated the boats of the common worker. I guess they can do that out of nothing. It didn't have anything to do with Capitalism, Venture Capital Risk Takers, Streamlined methods of Production, Continued inventions by those who believed in progress not give me what you got. I could be wrong, the socialist created the environment for capitalism. Think about it. The problem with today, we are far from socialism. We are vast approaching Nazi doctrine. Why do you think 18,000 IRS agents were added to the brown-shirts?? Do some research and see what you come up with.

8
posted on 07/01/2012 6:12:06 PM PDT
by bramps
(Newt was the one, but Romney will do.)

Sorry. I'm not playing this game anymore. A "socialist" is whatever a leftist wants it to be at any point in a given political argument.

Socialism is just another flavor of totalitarian statism, along with fascism, communism, Naziism, Progressivism and all the other variations of the same preposterous idea that has plagued humanity for the past 100 years.

That idea is that society ought to be ordered by a group of elite "planners" who operate to implement their schemes through densely concentrated government power.

Thus, a socialist is someone who is opposed to the very concept of human liberty.

A socialist is someone who thinks of himself as "scientific" thinker, yet refuses to recognize the easily observable fact that during the last 100 years, every variation of statism has failed miserably, bringing economic collapse, hardship and death to every society that has tried it.

Even the impending collapse of Europe, and the economic peril facing the United States, is not sufficient to inspire a glimmer of self-doubt, a smidgen of question, in the mind of a socialist regarding the viability of statism.

A socialist is someone who imagines that there exists a big bottomless pot of money that belongs to nobody in particular, and that the highest manifestation of statesmanship is just to hand it out.

A socialist is someone who opposes human slavery only to the extent that the slaves are privately owned.

A collectivist is called by many names - Democrat, Socialist, Nazi, Fascist, Communist, Progressive, Marxist, Leftist, Bolshevist, Kibbutznik, Stalinist, Maoist, et al which place the group above the individual.

11
posted on 07/01/2012 6:40:10 PM PDT
by Jack Hydrazine
(It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine!)

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